Loggerhead sea turtles are slow-growing, long lived animals that do not reach sexual maturity until they are around 30 years old. They spend the majority of their lives in the ocean with females only coming ashore to nest. Like other sea turtles, loggerheads return to the same beach where they hatched to nest, sometimes traveling hundreds or thousands of kilometres between their feeding and nesting grounds. The two largest remaining nesting areas, in terms of number of nesting females, for loggerhead sea turtles are on the southeast coast of the United States and the coast of Oman.

After mating at sea, females come to shore a few times during the nesting season, dig a hole in the sand and lay 100 to 130 eggs each time. After approximately two months, loggerhead hatchlings emerge from the nest all at once and make a mad dash to the sea. Like most crocodiles, alligators and turtles, the sex of loggerhead hatchlings is temperature dependent, with lower temperatures producing clutches of males and higher temperatures producing clutches of females. Juvenile loggerhead sea turtles may spend as long as seven to 12 years foraging in the open ocean. During this part of their lives, they stay close to floating seaweed and other floating marine debris, likely feeding on crustaceans and other invertebrates that are also attracted to these floating masses. Riding currents that circle entire ocean basins, it is possible that juvenile loggerheads cross the ocean several times during this period in the open ocean. Scientists are only beginning to learn where these turtles go and what they are doing during these so called “lost years”.